Disaster

Update: Passengers walked down the steps from a hijacked plane at Malta International Airport on Friday, and Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat tweeted that a first group of 25 had been freed and the release of another 25 was under way. Reuters reports that buses were driven onto the tarmac to carry passengers away, and more releases were expected, with more than 100 passengers and crew reported to have been on board. Television footage showed no signs of struggle or alarm.

Too soon?

Source: The Burning Platform blog

The desperate wife of a missing California man used an app on her smartphone to locate his body after earlier reporting him missing to police. The find-my-phone application led the woman to her husband’s car which lay crushed below an elevated ramp at the interchange of Highway 101 and Highway 92 in San Mateo, California. Mercury News reports: Jayesh Patel, 49, died late Friday or early Saturday after the Mercedes he was driving careened off Highway 92 and plummeted to a field below, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Russia has shut down four McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow for sanitary violations after a consumer watchdog filed a suit demanding certain burgers and milkshakes be banned on the grounds the fat, protein, carbohydrates and calories they contain “deviate widely from technical norms”. “Violations have been found that put the quality and safety of food products in doubt for the whole McDonald’s chain,” said Anna Popova, Russia’s head sanitary inspector.

Flint, Michigan has declared a state of emergency after officials discovered that children had dangerous levels of lead in their blood.  Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared that state of emergency on Monday night, saying “the City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster.” Washingtonpost.com reports: The mayor — elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration’s handling of the water problems — said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the “irreversible” effects of lead exposure on the city’s childre